Seven Simple Sparks
by Mariagoner
Summary: Seven views of seven possible pasts, presents and futures. Sex, strife and seduction are constants in the shinobi world… NejiHinata, SasukeSakura, NarutoHinata, KabutoHinata, Haku, Zabuza.


It appears that the first product of a recent challenge I posted in my journal is, appropriately enough, going to be a set of (now heavily revised) drabbles for my very first fandom ever, Naruto. Beware much madness and genre mixing mixing in the following below!

Comments, corrections and criticism are, as always, completely welcome and loved! After all, a little encouragement never fails to add a bit of inspiration to a humble fanfic writer...

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**Title: Seven Simple Sparks  
Fandom: Naruto  
Characters/Pairings: Neji/Hinata, Sasuke/Sakura, Naruto/Hinata, Kabuto/Hinata, Haku, Zabuza  
Rating: R  
Summary: Seven views of seven possible pasts, presents and futures. Sex, strife and seduction are constants in the shinobi world…**

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**I. Neji/Hinata: Reluctant, For Acerbitas.**

Curiously enough, it was the fingers tracing her still unmarked forehead that were, for once, trembling and her own around his wrist that were steady. His voice, when he spoke, was no smoother.

"You don't," he said, and his voice was more ghostly than hers had ever been, "need to do this. You don't need to sacrifice yourself this way. I can still talk to your father-- I can even still talk to that _bitch sister_ of yours-- and convince them that... convince them to..."

And he faltered, as she knew he inevitably would. Because there was nothing else to argue, because there was nothing better to do, because she knew that this was necessary just as well as she knew that she had yet in her courage enough to meet her fate.

"No, Neji-nissan," she says, and her voice is, for the first time in a long while, perfectly in control. "No, if you suffer, I suffer, and I won't let you be the last one to understand this sort of pain."

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**II. Sasuke/Sakura: Reunion, for LadyAssassin.**

"I don't know what to say anymore," she whispered, her eyes still stubbornly devoid of tears. "I don't know what you want." And even the deepest whispers of his heart

(_his family his brother his honor)_

_(his bride his world his life_)

meant nothing when it came to the overwhelming need to drive Orochimaru out of his mind.

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**III. Naruto/Hinata: Confession, for LadyAssassin.**

She is never so ashamed as when she has to admit this, and Naruto is never so devestated as when he learns of her secret. Eyes wide with tears he has not wept since he was a child, her husband looks at her with a trust shattered beyond his ability to understand.

"Are you sure?" he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. "Maybe-- maybe this is just a... a quirk. Maybe... maybe it isn't what you think it is. Hinata-chan, maybe you can still learn to--"

"I am," she said, and though her voice is filled with tears she has not shed, she is still resolute. "And I can't-- Naruto-kun, I can't live this sort of lie anymore!"

And before he can say another word, she wrenches herself from the counter of Ichiraku before the appalled eyes of all around her. "I can't keep doing this, Naruto-kun! I _just can't keep pretending to like ramen anymore!_"

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**IV. Kabuto/Hinata: Alone, for Amaiko.**

Kabuto's mouth was always dry when it touched her own, always dry and cool and not a little sour. "Do you like this?" he would ask, even as he touched his lips to hers to her own, made her back arch beneath him, bent the flanks of her calves across his broad shoulders. "Do you like the way I can touch you, the way I make you cry? Do you enjoy the way I can make you feel behind your eye lids and between your thighs? Do you like...?"

He could have just asked, "Do you like the way I make you feel like the only person in the world when I'm by your side?" And to that and that alone would she consent to give her smile.

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**V. Haku and Zabuza: Snowfall, for ArcanePhoenix**

"The truly beautiful thing about snow," Haku whispered, his breath reverent underneath the fall, "is that it can cover up all the ugliness in it's wake."

Eyes trailing across the pile of corpses they had amassed across the boundaries of the village, Zabuza let the boy have his illusions. As long as his weapon functioned as it needed to, he cared not a whit about what pretty lies it let itself believe in order to soldier on.

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**VI. Sasuke/Sakura: Do you know I cry?, for LaXhal**

His fingers were forceful as they gripped the nape of her neck, as they caressed the curling hairs there even as his knuckles ground her head further to the ground. There is a strange sense of wetness across her back, beads of it spreading against the surface of her jacket, and she does not know-- does not _want_ to know-- what it could consist of. If she did, it might break her more than his violence ever could.

"Do you know why I cry?" Sasuke asks her, and nothing, nothing, _nothing_ could make her tremble harder. "It's only because..."

And in the end, there's no time to even let him finish before she unleashes the last of the chakra inside her and his words are lost against the curling darts of poison her subsequent corpse lets flower.

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**VII. Neji/Hinata: Breath, for Amaiko.**

His breath fogs up all the mirrors she holds up to his face. "Not this one," he would say, his voice curiously unsteady. "Not this either." And it did not matter what surface she points towards his face-- nothing, but nothing, seems to show him as he would like to be seen, even _with_ his curse seal finally burned off.

Finally, in desperation, she asks him what it is that she can do, what it is that she can provide. And when he traced the lines of her face and tilts it up to his, he finds that the mirror he has always needed most was always within her eyes.


End file.
